White Tiger will be a Hollywood film

NEW YORK: Call it a sort of sequel to the Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire. Aravind Adiga���s Man Booker winner The White Tiger will be made into a Hollywood film soon. John Hart���s newly-formed Smuggler Films has acquired rights to The White Tiger as its first project, the Hollywood Reporter said.

Both Vikas Swarup���s novel Q&A, on which Slumdog Millionaire was based, and Adiga���s novel focus on ���class tensions in contemporary India���, the report said.

The White Tiger, which won Britain���s top literary prize last year, narrates the story of Balram Halwai, ���a rough-around-the-edges, politically incorrect rickshaw driver who struggles to escape his lower caste and poor upbringing by taking a driving job for a wealthy boss - and winds up committing a murder���.

Smuggler Films said this project offers a decidedly darker message than Danny Boyle���s Oscar winner. ���While Slumdog paints a romantic portrait of the rising India, in which anyone can be a millionaire, The White Tiger suggests that to succeed, murder may be the only option,��� the report quoted the producers as saying.

The White Tiger will be produced in association with Jolyon Symonds��� and Nicholas Greene���s Ascension Entertainment. Hart is a producer who, after his Hart-Sharp banner was dissolved several years ago, formed Evamere Entertainment. He most recently served as a producer on Revolutionary Road.